


Home for Christmas

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 1940s social mores and relative homophobia, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, under-age(16/16)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>September, 1940, the Blitz is at its height. Merlin's an evacuee.<br/>December, 1944, two boys find out what closeness means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vesperdivum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesperdivum/gifts).



**December, 1944**

Standing on the pedals, Merlin pushed with all his strength, zigzagging to avoid puddles and inching closer to the crest coalescing into the High Street. He was just breezing past it when Mrs Jones called after him. “There'll be a warm loaf waiting for you if you come by after closing time, Merlin!”

“I will drop by,” Merlin shouted back, already down the other side of the hill, “promise. And thank you!”

By the time he'd delivered that mouthful he'd already almost made it out of the tiny village of Camelot and was speeding towards open country. He biked past the old bridge and across the road that coasted the fields belonging to the manor. To take the next bend, he crouched, bending knees and elbows, and put his all into the bike-ride. 

Soon he was riding past the gate and up the lane leading up to the manor house. Merlin skirted past the main entrance and pedalled up to the servants' one. 

He leant his bike up against the wall and was about to sneak inside when Miss Catrina surprised him.

“Who gave you permission to go out?” she said, arms crossed, tapping her foot relentlessly against the gravel.

Merlin didn't duck his head as he would have done when he was scarcely twelve and newly arrived. “I went to hear the carols.”

“I don't remember giving you permission to go,” Catrina said.

Merlin looked the other way, bothering his lower lip with a sharp tooth. “Mmm.”

“And, as you know, you're here only on sufferance,” Catrina said, mouth thin with disapproval. “You're no longer an evacuee, not officially. I could turn you out on your ear at any moment. And I swear I will. Just because young Master Pendragon has taken a shine to you, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you fancy, young man.”

“I--” Merlin twiddled his thumbs. “I stopped by the post office to see if there was a letter from my mum and then got sidetracked when I heard the singing.”

That didn't pacify Catrina. Her face got red and her cheeks puffed out. “If you wanted to stay with your mother waiting for a V2 to fall, then you're welcome to go back to London. I for one would celebrate.”

“I'm--”

Right that moment, Arthur's tutor, Mr Monmouth, came down, and Catrina whirled round, all smiles for him. “Mr Monmouth, I hope your pupil wasn't too much trouble today? He's missing his father, the poor thing, and if he came across as less than attentive that's surely the reason.”

Mr Monmouth opened his mouth to speak and before he could start speechifying, Merlin stole inside. Let Catrina find him again when she was free to hunt him down again. For now she was thick in conversation with Mr Monmouth, who had the repute of being the kind of man to use twenty words in place of three equally apt ones if he only could. 

In the meanwhile Merlin took the servants' stairs two at a time, used the passage the butler employed to get access to the family's quarters, and bounded into the drawing room. “Arthur!” he said, closing the door behind him. “Arthur!”

Arthur was sitting at the piano, looking out the window as he forlornly pressed the same key over and over again. He looked up when he saw Merlin, his lost air giving way to a small smile.

“Merlin,” he said. 

Merlin ran over to him, skidding on the polished floor. He put his rucksack down and rooted inside it. “Here,” he told Arthur, “this is for you.”

He hadn't wrapped it, having spent all he had on the record itself, but he hoped it was the thought that counted. It seemed to work that way because the corners of Arthur's lips lifted and his eyes rounded. “Is this... Is this my Christmas present?”

“Yeah,” Merlin said. “A few days before time.”

“Right, Christmas.” Arthur set the record down on the piano lid and his face clouded over. “Do you think he'll make it home for the twenty-fourth this year?”

“I don't know if they'll let him,” Merlin said. “But I'm sure he'll write.”

“Did your mum?” Arthur asked, playing with the edges of the record's sleeve.

“Yeah,” Merlin said. “She's fine. She says not to worry. Our street's not been hit.”

“Is there word of your uncle?” Arthur asked, eyes intent on Merlin's.

Merlin had to force back the knot that formed round his throat at the thought of that old man in danger, the closest person he'd ever had to a dad. “No,” Merlin said. “No word. He's somewhere. At least we know he was alive a month ago.”

“You're lucky,” Arthur agreed. “I don't know as much about Father.” He looked down again. A crease appeared on his brow and Merlin felt the urge to smooth it out with his fingers. “It's been a while since he wrote. And there's been Bastogne in between.”

Merlin didn't do as he wanted; he didn't reach out. He dreamed of helping Arthur in every way he could all the time but knew full well that it was impossible. He couldn't stop the war anymore than he could make sure his uncle didn't get killed. Neither could he touch Arthur to comfort him. There were barriers. Arthur's stiff-upper-lip being one. His need to take the weight of things on his shoulder and act as if the burden was light was another obstacle to the kind of display Merlin wanted to indulge in. He nodded imperceptibly instead. “Since Antwerp, right?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, playing a scale. “I wonder... I wonder how long this war will last. If it lasts long enough I'll be able to go find him.”

“You mean enrolling?” said Merlin. 

His vision clouded over. Uncle Gaius had written to him about the men he patched up and those he couldn't save. He'd spared Merlin most of the horrors of the war but some of them had filtered through. Besides, Merlin knew how many men died daily. He read the papers and his mum had told him all about the widowers she visited during her rounds of the neighbourhood. While being in London wasn't safe because of the air raids, being a soldier was a million times worse. He dreaded that Will, butcher's boy Will, his old time neighbour Will, would be called up, and leave him too. Merlin knew his fear was grounded. Will was older than both Merlin and Arthur. In two months he'd hit eighteen and he'd be recruited. Will covered it up with bravado, saying things like, “I'll show' em. I'll kick those Germans back to Berlin, see if I don't.” But Merlin knew Will's heart wasn't in it. For himself Merlin couldn't imagine wanting to join when most people would give anything not to. 

“Yeah, I could go find him.”

“You wouldn't even end up in the same division as him, Arthur,” Merlin said. Then taking his hand, something he wouldn't have done but for the pitch of emotion Arthur had woken in him with his talk of joining the war effort, Merlin added, “but if you do, I'll join too.”

“Merlin,” Arthur said, his fingers curling around Merlin's after a twitch or two. “No, you're not. You're just not. You're not cut out to be a soldier.”

“Why not?” Merlin said. “Because I'm not the son of a career military man?”

“No,” Arthur said, his gaze serious, his lips pressed together. “Because you're thin as a reed and anyone could bowl you over and kill you.”

Merlin hated the thought of war. What he hated more was the thought of letting Arthur go and not seeing him ever again. “Not true. I was in lots of fights.”

“Street brawls,” Arthur said. “You can't tell me you live in the most reputable part of London when you're not here.”

Merlin didn't mean to quibble about that. “No, I don't and am proud of it. Regardless, if you do join, then I will too. I'll fight or die at your side, whichever comes first.”

Arthur's eyes grew large. Merlin was sure he'd say something to make fun of his statement and was thinking up things to counteract any possible taunt, when something entirely different happened. Arthur leant forward and pressed his mouth against his. 

Their lips stuck together where they touched but Merlin wasn't focusing on that exactly and more on the fact that his heart was suddenly trying to claw its way out of his throat. Or on the fact that he ought to do something because warmth was pouring inside of him low in his belly and deep in his cock. Arthur, for his part, was looking in his eyes from really close up. 

Arthur's eyes were blue and slanted and truly beautiful. Also expectant, as if he was trying to see what Merlin would do.

Trouble was Merlin didn't know…

He returned a bit of pressure but stayed otherwise very still and quiet. Arthur pushed away, shooting up from the piano stool, saying, “I forgot to ask Mr Monmouth something, I'll be back.”

Merlin pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. His heartbeat stayed mad but his eyes misted up. 

He didn't see Arthur for the rest of the day.

 

**** 

**September, 1940**

 

His mum wrapped the scarf around his neck yet again. It kept coming unlooped. “You have to go, Merlin.”

“I want to stay and protect you,” Merlin said, balling his fists at his impotence. Some children where allowed to stay with their families. Even those who'd been billeted. Their families just kept them. He didn't understand why his mum wouldn't let him too. It wasn't as if he was a baby. He was almost a man and with Uncle Gaius gone to be a medic in the war he was the only one his mum could rely on. It made no sense. “How are you supposed to cope without me?”

“Merlin,” said his mum, smoothing his collar. “I need to know that you're safe. I can't work if I'm thinking you're not safe.”

“But if I'm not, you're not either,” Merlin pointed out.

“Merlin, you'll do as you're told,” his mum said more sternly. “For once.”

“But--” There were lots of 'but's' he could think of, but he knew to shut up when his mum's mouth got all pinched with lines the way it did when she was about to tell him off. “Merlin, you'll do as I say.”

“I just want to help,” Merlin said. He wasn't sure how but he felt deep down that he should. “Please, mum.”

His mum cradled his cheek. “I already lost your father; I don't want to lose you too.” 

And that was that. She introduced herself to the conductor, told him Merlin was her only child, making Merlin fiddle with his collar out of pure embarrassment, and confided Merlin to the man. Merlin was shoved onto the train and made to sit with a myriad other children from all corners of London.

The journey, once it started, was horrible. In other circumstances Merlin would have loved it. He liked to think he adapted to the presence of other kids easily, he always made friends, had been known for it, and he'd rarely been on a train. He was curious by nature, so, normally, he would have had the unknowns of the journey to look forward to. Would he see nice places? Would the towns he touched at be pretty? Today wasn't like that.

Most of the children, especially the younger ones, were crying for their mums and dads. None of them was in a mood to chat with Merlin. Each was too focused on their own woes. They'd been given boxes containing gas masks and those mysterious objects seemed to make everyone nervous.

Merlin wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do with one and while at first he was excited about the new object, which made him feel responsible – like a fireman, maybe – he grew wary of it as soon as he thought of its uses. He might have felt as lost then as all the other children with him on the train were but for the thought he had to be strong for his mum.

(And so that the dad he'd never known would he proud of him if he could possibly see him.)

To buoy himself up he tried talking to the little girl sitting opposite him. Chatting always did him good. "I'm Freya," she told him in a trembling voice. 

"I'm Merlin," Merlin said, smacking his own chest. "From Wapping."

"North London," she said and didn't add much to that, even when Merlin tried to coax a smile out of her by sharing the biscuits his mum had made him for the trip. "Here, they're tasty."

That wasn't a brilliant idea.

As it happened it wasn't. A bully of a boy of about fifteen and with a few inches on Merlin swooped past, made a grab for the bundle they were in, and practically stole them. Merlin said to Freya, "I'll get them back for you," even though he suspected she'd rather act as if nothing had happened. Merlin just couldn't. He pursued the thief down two carriages, calling him out. “Oi, those were mine.”

The thief ran down the length of half the train before stopping short and taunting Merlin with the bundle of – by now likely crushed – biscuits. “You want'em, you get them, Toothpick.”

Merlin tried hard but the boy was taller and came in a shape that made him look like a door, a sturdy one. He was just that massively built. So Merlin did what he could and charged him, head butted low. For a moment it seemed like Merlin was winning the day, like the massive boy was falling backwards. But, no, he wasn't. He was just reworking his stance. This meant that the massive boy was able to push him away and hit him square in the face, like a boxer on the ring, splitting a cheekbone open. 

The massive boy would have hit him again for sure, and Merlin was bracing for it, hadn't the conductor stepping between them, saying, “What is this?” What do you think you're doing, you little scoundrels?”

The conductor separated them and assigned them to two different carriages. “If you move, you'll have to answer to me. I'm serious.”

The rest of the journey was quiet by comparison. Freya cried when she saw the cut on his cheekbone. A kid marvelled at seeing a cow from the window (it was a rarity for city bred boys). Only a few other kids managed to stay quiet: the others wouldn't stay still. 

Merlin could see how that was; his carriage was filled with smaller boys and girls and they were the least likely to be quiet when separated from their mums.

Merlin felt a bit sorry for them; they were younger than him and probably less likely to fully understand the reasons why they were being sent away. Their skinny legs and large hand-me-downs made him feel as if he was responsible for them.

Like a big brother. He didn't know what to do to improve the general mood. Until an idea struck him. He had a few coins in his pocket that would do. He stood up, cleared his throat, and said, “Do you want to see a magic number?”

That got the others' attention all right.

***** 

December, 1944,

 

Left alone in the drawing room, the big piano mute in front of him, Merlin didn't quite know what to do. There were several reasons to be confused. His lips were tingling. Arthur had kissed him. Arthur had left the room without even scooping his present up. Arthur had left the room _after_ kissing him. His actions were unreadable. 

To dispel the confusion Merlin tried to make sense of them.

That Merlin knew of you only kissed people because you liked them. That much was a given. He'd been taught that kisses meant that. (He'd also been taught that boys kissed girls, that was it and anything else was bad, but he ignored that thought because it didn't sit well with him.) 

The second point that got him befuddled had been Arthur leaving him like that without telling him why, abrupt as you please. Did that mean that he hadn't meant to show Merlin any sign of affection at all? That he had but that he'd also reconsidered? That he was angry? And was that why he'd forgotten his present? Because in his anger that didn't matter any more?

All of these were fairly good questions and Merlin would have mulled over them a while longer if he hadn't heard Miss Catrina's very distinctive footfall outside the drawing room. Merlin didn't particularly want to be caught by her after he'd ditched her mid-dressing down. He'd only get another. 

So he stole into the next room, a small cabinet that gave onto the stairs, and waited for Catrina to enter the drawing room. Before she could think of looking in the cabinet, he darted down the main staircase – no matter that she'd eat him alive for soiling the area with his plebeian imprint – and darted down and out of the manor before you could say 'gone'.

He spent the rest of the day up in the tree-house, stealing back into the village only towards evening, hoping to get that loaf he'd been promised by the baker. Upon receiving it, he thanked the woman profusely; after all he was hungry and had skipped lunch in order to get away from Catrina. “I mean, thanks, again. Thanks for saving it for me and...”

“It was my pleasure, Merlin. I do it with pleasure. You're just like my boy.” She gave a sigh and looked at the picture of a young man in uniform. Her body shook with it but she recovered quickly, smoothing her apron and giving him a once over once she seemed more settled. “You look sad, young man,” Mrs Jones said musingly. “Is everything fine up at the house?”

Merlin nodded his head. “Yeah, everything's fine.”

“Don't let them tell you you're worth less because you're not one of those hoity toity, high and mighty nobs, all right?”

“Arthur wouldn't,” Merlin hurried to say. “Wouldn't do that.” He corrected himself: “Not anymore.”

“I mean Miss Tregore,” said Mrs Jones. “Don't let her bring you down, boy.”

Merlin said, “I won't,” and then not willing to blame anyone belonging to Avalon Manor and, indirectly, Arthur, he hurriedly thanked Mrs Jones again. It was the best diversion he had in his arsenal even if it probably didn't fool the woman. At that point the only thing he could do was leave. Which he did.

The rest of the day he spent in the tree-house as well. Thanks to the rain that set in nobody went looking for him and Merlin was able to hide there with none the wiser. He noshed on the bread. Played with the cards he and Arthur had left there on their last visit and enjoyed a prime opportunity to think about Arthur and what had happened that very morning. 

He came to no conclusion as to the kissing incident except for wishing to rewind the events of the day so he could make sure Arthur was okay with him. Not angry. Not hating him. That was what he wanted the most: for Arthur never to hate him. For Arthur to see how well Merlin thought of him. How much he meant to him.

As Merlin mulled this over, night fell and with it a wind came that was quite biting. Merlin knew he couldn't stay in the tree-house much longer, not unless he wanted to fall ill, so he stole back to the house. His absence, he hoped, hadn't have been noted. 

Unless he ran directly into her, Miss Catrina wasn't one for focusing on him. She always said he was nothing. So it seemed logical to think that she wouldn't even realise he'd gone missing.

Luckily, she wasn't prowling around the premises. 

So he ran up the stairs and towards the tiny room at the top that they'd given him. It used to be the room Arthur's nanny slept in. Except it had been vacated when Arthur was deemed old enough not to have one. Miss Catrina had then said that Merlin could have it when he was at Avalon Manor. ( _After all we're generous souls and we should put up with that nuisance of a boy. Everything for the war effort. Major Pendragon would approve_.) And now it was Merlin's place of refuge. Glad he hadn't been caught red-handed, he darted for the door and slipped inside without turning the light on. 

The door snicked closed behind him.

“Where have you been?” 

Merlin jumped. “God, Arthur.”

Arthur switched the bedside lamp on. “Where have you been all day?”

Merlin shrugged out of his coat and kicked off his muddy shoes. “Hiding.”

“You didn't come back for lunch; you didn't come back for dinner.”

Merlin gave a small smile. “You know how it works. Catrina was on my case.”

“She shouldn't be,” Arthur said, shooting him a glance that was sharp despite the dim lighting. “She knows how it should work. You're a guest.”

“Not a guest. Not really. Plus, she thinks she's doing the best by you,” Merlin said, sitting by Arthur's side on his bed. “Protecting the house from the likes of me and all that. I'm sure she still suspects I've got my mind on the silver. You know that.”

“She just acts like that because she hopes my father will marry her when he returns,” said Arthur, looking at the bedspread. “Because she thinks he'll praise her or something. Is that why you disappeared?”

Merlin was about to launch on a speech about how Catrina didn't matter but was unprepared for the turn in the conversation that reset it all so that it was biased towards him. The cleverly posed question. Usually Arthur was easy to... Not lie to, exactly, but at least distract. When Merlin didn't want to talk about something – like the absence of his own dad – he just didn't, deflecting Arthur's attention away. Generally, that worked. Merlin had a feeling it wouldn't tonight.

“Yeah, no, yes,” Merlin started. He didn't know how truthful he wanted to be. “I--”

“It's because I kissed you, isn't it?” Arthur asked, rounding his eyes on Merlin. “I want you to know that I don't ever want you to feel uncomfortable with me or here at Avalon.”

“It's not that,” Merlin said, owning up to that having been the reason for his absence without wanting to. “It's that you left and I didn't know why and I had to think about your actions to make sense of that kiss.”

“I--” Arthur said and as he did Merlin could see his ribcage inflate and his body go tense. His eyes took on a shiny kind of lustre as if he was drunk. “I wanted to tell you how I feel. And that seemed the best way.”

“How you feel?” Merlin wasn't sure what Arthur was talking about. Because Arthur had kissed him. And then ran away. “Which one of the two?”

“Two what?” Arthur asked, pupils flaring.

“Feelings,” Merlin explained. “You kissed me and then ran away. Which one?”

Arthur's cheeks got puffy with air not yet blown out. Then he exhaled, took Merlin's face in his hands and fit their lips together once more. This time the kiss was more than just a fleeting brush. 

Arthur stamped his lips across Merlin and rubbed them with his, hovering, then more insistent, testing this new boundary. And when Merlin quivered and gasped, he suckled his bottom lip before his tongue slid inside Merlin's mouth to slowly glide alongside his.

“That's what I meant.” Arthur breathed against his mouth. “That's what I meant by it.”

***** 

**September, 1940**

 

It was late afternoon by the time Merlin got off the train. Like the other children he was herded first on the platform and then towards the station square. 

Adults with clipboards where trying to sort the children out so they could then be billeted to a new address. Each kid had been given a sheet of paper, envelope and a stamp, so they could tell their families where they were housed once the chaos of moving had died down. 

As the evacuation coordinators worked at ticking off names, the town's inhabitants got more and more curious, approaching the children. In most cases they did it so they could test them – looking them up and down, checking their clothing for tears and their mouths for cavities – so as to be able to choose which one they'd take home with them.

Merlin had no trouble figuring out the method to the madness. The youngest, wailing children were left behind as too much trouble. So where those who looked too poor ( _not that girl, dear, she'll end up nicking stuff_ ), whose clothes were too frayed ( _they'll make us look as though we're uncharitable_ ), or whose health looked precarious ( _we'd have to take him to the doctor, he's so pale_ ).

Merlin didn't flatter himself. With the cut he was sporting he looked like a thug. His clothes needed mending in places and he didn't look as strong and serviceable as the lad a couple was taking home with them. Now that boy would be lots of help on a farm. Merlin not so much. He'd have to wait long to find someone to take him in.

He was starting to feel cold from standing still so long, when the massive boy from the train trudged past him and threatened him. “You'll hear from me again! Got it, Toothpick! I'll remodel your face till even your mum won't know it.”

Merlin sighed and said, “I'll make it hard work, idiot.”

That stopped a few people in their tracks. A man in uniform was among them. “What's going on?” he asked.

One of the evacuation coordinators said, “Sometimes these evacuees can be difficult, Major Pendragon.”

Merlin couldn't say that he was nearly blameless in all of this, but he felt the urge to explain that the hostility wasn't all on his side. “That boy is a bully. He bullied a girl and then when I faced him with it he got even worse. So I sort of fought him.”

The Major's lips twitched, giving Merlin a disbelieving once over. “That boy is certainly cheeky.” He strode up to Merlin, boots as shiny as if they were new, though Merlin could see the creases in the leather that testified to their not being so. “Tell me, boy, what's your name?”

“Merlin Emrys,” Merlin said, standing with his shoulders thrown back.

“Merlin.” The man tapped his chin. “An unusual name. So, Merlin, how old are you?”

“I'm nearly twelve.”

“Twelve,” the Major said, “and can stand up for himself. Not to mention he's nearly Arthur's age.” That seemed to be something the man had vocalised for his own benefit rather than Merlin's, so Merlin said nothing even if he took this Arthur to be the Major's son or nephew and was eager to ask. Even so he kept that to himself. 

“I'm offering this boy housing,” said the Major to the evacuation coordinator. “I think Arthur would benefit from having a companion his age.”

Merlin knew better than to refuse. If he did, he didn't know where or with whom he'd end up. He didn't think this Major exuded a particularly nice aura but some of the other locals he'd seen manhandling the children this way and that didn't look nice either.

He waited shifting from foot to foot as the paperwork was done and then hopped onto a car that came with a real chauffeur. 

A real chauffeur that drove the car along winding country roads and rural village segments, giving Merlin ample opportunity to get a glimpse of the countryside, something he'd never truly had a knowledged of before. He was more familiar with docks and markets than meadows.

At last the car eased up a long, tree-lined drive that led up to a big manor the likes of which Merlin had never seen and that made him gawp. Well, as a Londoner, he'd seen Buckingham Palace and a few other fancy buildings but that was it. This was like something out of those fairy tales his mum used to read to him when he was smaller. The house had wings and windows as tall as three men perched one on top of the other and the steps leading up to it were fine, veined marble.

As Merlin marvelled, nose up in the air so he could gaze at the bulk of the building, the door opened. The butler bowed and let a footman take care of the Major's military coat and briefcase as well as of Merlin's tiny suitcase. 

Merlin was trying to reach out for it because he didn't really trust strangers with his things when a blond boy roundabout his age stomped down the stairs and stopped short at seeing Merlin. “Father, who's that?”

“This is the evacuee boy we have from London,” the Major said as if that was self-explanatory.

Merlin had been a bit relieved to find that this blond boy while looking posh was nothing like the giant, horrible one from the train, until he said, “I don't want him here! He's scrawny. And dirty.”

That was Arthur then. This was really a bad start.

**** 

**December, 1944**

 

“I think I got the hang of this now,” Merlin said, pecking at Arthur's lips.

“Took you long enough,” Arthur said, poking his tongue at Merlin's mouth and tickling it into surrender. 

This kiss was warm and moist with a touch of tongue that became a swipe of two meeting together. 

Small bites followed because they needed to breathe and it was easier if they withdrew for a second or two between nips. Then they were touching lips again, first the upper one, then the other. 

As they went at it, Merlin's heart thundered in his ears and all he could think about was how he'd never done this before. It was as good as they'd let him understand it would be though he refused to think about what other people would say. He realised others must never know; that this moment was theirs to be kept secret, but he parted his lips again all the same. 

Their tongues slid together. Chasing each other, rubbing each other, tasting. 

“Was this what you had in mind?” Merlin asked, voice sounding very much like it wasn't even his, all gravelly and husky as it rarely was.

“Yes,” Arthur said, “I didn't think past kissing you, honestly. I saw a couple in the village the other day and they were...” Arthur made a lewd gesture and promptly blushed.

Merlin loved that cocky Arthur would do that. He was always going about how he knew everything, mostly things pertaining to military subjects, and explaining them to Merlin as if Merlin was an idiot. He always had this assured, drawling tone of voice, that sounded as though he could neer be perturbed. Merlin gloried in being able to find out Arthur wasn't always like that. He could be perturbed, lots. Tilting his head to the side and drawing him deeper than before, Merlin kissed him once more. 

When the kiss ended Merlin pulled away to stare into Arthur's eyes. “I can't believe this is happening,” he blurted out. Mostly because it described his mood fairly correctly. And also because he didn't know what to say or do. He'd known Arthur long and he hadn't thought they'd do this, ever. But he loved having his expectations shaken up. He adored this, the tingle of expectation, the warmth blooming in his chest and making him feel all high and stupid.

“Nobody can know,” Arthur said, grabbing both his shoulders and grounding Merlin back into reality again. “Not my father, not Catrina, nobody.”

“Do you think I'm stupid?” Merlin said, “because I'm not. I know this is a secret.”

Arthur's expression grew serious. “I know you're not as dim as you want people to think. I'm just. I'm sorry it has to be that way. But I'm scared. About people knowing. But as long as...”

“I know,” Merlin said. “I know.” He quirked his lips. “Can we do more now?”

It became a game of touch that took Merlin's breath. Hands roamed, palms investigated body parts. Lips did the same. Arthur kissed Merlin's neck until Merlin batted him away. His cock was stiff, painfully so, and he didn't know what that would mean for them now. It wasn't as obvious as the lewd talk Merlin had overheard would lead one to think. They could backtrack. Or see to themselves in the bathroom. Arthur, however, dispelled all doubts for him, for when he realised, clothes started flying.

No questions asked. Merlin certainly didn't object. He was straining in his skin and being naked seemed like less of a constriction.

At first Arthur didn't touch his cock or anywhere close. He just opened Merlin's shirt button by button and chased his fingers down his torso, with wet, parted lips. As Arthur's lips skimmed down his torso, Merlin trembled with want, need and shyness, a sense of wonder.

He learnt about hunger too as Arthur fluttered his lips over Merlin's ribs and on those patches of skin where Merlin's belly – always a little bit hunger lean – hollowed a bit.

“Arthur, slow down,” Merlin said, feeling as if his breathing couldn't get quicker or as if his hands couldn't starve for touch more. “Lemme.”

He tugged at Arthur's hair and Arthur sat back up so that Merlin could bare his torso as Arthur had done for his. So that he could map it for himself as Arthur had done with him, his mouth lighting where it wanted, on a collarbone, on Arthur's throat, down a line that went from pectoral to hip. 

Arthur hissed and that sound was a shock of realisation for Merlin. He looked up and saw Arthur's face screwed up oddly, his mouth slack, a frown on his forehead, his cheeks hollower. That was when he knew without the shadow of a doubt that Arthur was feeling the same way as him. Scared, turned on, ready to give in, wanting to explore.

Wanting Merlin.

He couldn't quite believe they were here; that they were equal, feeling the same. Him with his background and Arthur with his posh one and all the expectations that went with it. Yet his heart with its loud beating told him that they were very much there. 

They were about to take this step and they'd do it together and Merlin wanted to believe it meant something. Something quite great and ten shades of brilliant.

There was nothing that he wanted more than to cherish and touch Arthur, after all.

Guided by that thought, he unbuttoned Arthur's trousers and lowered them.

Arthur's eyes flared. “What are you going to do?” 

Off the top of his head, Merlin said, “I think I want to kiss your cock.”

Arthur's eyebrows climbed upwards. “Really?”

In London Merlin had overheard a neighbouring girl say she'd do that to her sailor boyfriend and the mental image had stuck. “Yeah, would you like that?”

Arthur made a high rasping sound like he was dying. His eyes looked like they would bounce out of their sockets. “Can you do that? W-would you do that?”

Merlin smiled and nosed Arthur's cock through his underwear, causing Arthur to pant and cover his eyes with his arm.

“What, is this wrong?” Merlin asked. “Does it hurt?”

“N-nooo,” said Arthur, sounding choked up and raspy. “It's so good.”

Emboldened, Merlin pulled Arthur's underwear low enough for Arthur's red cock to spring out, full and fat as Merlin had never seen it, not when they'd gone bathing to the lake and not when they'd washed and changed together after a day spent chasing each other in the woods around Camelot.

It was a daunting object, so similar to the one pulsing between his legs, but also so alien because it belonged to another, filling on the basis of impulses that weren't his. That Merlin couldn't dictate but could probably, hopefully, influence. Merlin did what he could in order to achieve that. He wrapped his fingers around the wide base of Arthur's cock and brought it closer to his face. He gulped, took courage, and mouthed at the tip.

To be surprised by Arthur's pained little mewl at Merlin's fist soft suck and shocked by the curse words spilling out of (generally proper) Arthur's mouth when Merlin tongued the tissue under the gland, licking at it in a slow back and forth.

Arthur grabbed his hair, but this time Merlin knew it was because he was liking it and not because he was in pain or hated it. In fact Arthur hated this so little he moaned and shuddered when Merlin went down on him. 

Arthur was making so much noise, so much so Merlin feared intervention from outside. And yet he couldn't bring himself to stop what he was doing or wish this was any different. He loved the fact that Arthur was even harder in his mouth than before. He loved the little gasps that Arthur made. And he would give anything to be able to feel like this again.

His skin was burning from the tip of his ears to the soles of his feet; he couldn't breathe, choked up as he was with the prick Arthur was feeding him while bucking and thrusting. He was in love with the scent of Arthur that went deep through his nostrils. He was even enjoying having to breathe through them to get any oxygen at all. It made him dizzy and caused him to smell Arthur at his most essential, having him feel Arthur at a basic level, the memory of him new and precious and ready to sink into Merlin's consciousness forever and ever.

At first going down was difficult but the more he worked at it the more he found he could push lower and swallow more. He hadn't got the whole of Arthur but that didn't seem to matter because Arthur was thrusting, sobbing, petting and ruffling his hair. Then he was coming, tasting bitter and making Merlin cough and let go. Arthur's prick continued to spurt pearly strings of come that hit Merlin on the nose and lips.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” said Arthur between one pant and the next, “let me do you. Let me, please, Merlin. Let me.”

Merlin wasn't one for raising objections at this point. He was strung up, quivering within his own skin, his dick a source of ache. 

So he watched as Arthur changed positions and sat up. He kept doing so as Arthur fumbled with Merlin's trousers and wrapped a hand around him. He moved it up and down and gobs of white stuff spontaneously leaked out of Merlin's cock. “I--” Merlin said, cheeks flaming, unable to take his eyes off Arthur's hand around him, pink cock turned ruddy and pale hand a contrast Merlin could goggle at for hours.

Though Merlin would never, ever last for hours.

Probably knowing that, Arthur worked him from base to tip, tip to base. Merlin zoned out, his only thought the love that he bore Arthur and the only physical input one of pleasure and joy. He wanted to sing, laugh or shout. He wanted to cry a little based on how much he fucking longed for Arthur. Arthur his friend, Arthur his former nemesis, Arthur who was touching him like this and whom he'd touched like this. 

It lit him from inside out, this warmth. And then then his spine tingled, his belly became a bit loose. He was all hot everywhere, though the hotness centred around his cock. Merlin came and Arthur cleaned him up with his mouth.

They spent half the night nuzzling in bed; until four chimed and Arthur stole back to his rooms.

**** 

**September, 1940**

 

Merlin watched Arthur look out the big drawing room window. He couldn't see it as Arthur was but he could hear the motor rumbling away down the drive.

“He'll come back,” said Merlin. He wasn't truly sure. He suspected his mum would have called this lying but he couldn't refrain. Arthur's shoulders were hunched, one of his arms was wrapped around his middle and his other hand was splayed on the glass, leaving rounded imprints.

“You don't know that,” Arthur said. “My mum's brother died in the other war. My father could too.”

“I don't know that,” Merlin admitted, taking a fraction of a step forwards. He didn't want to infringe upon Arthur's loneliness and still felt like an alien here at the big house, but he couldn't let another boy fight under the weight of those sad feelings. “But I'm hoping so.”

“Why would you?” Arthur turned around. The motor had to have disappeared from view. “You're not my friend.”

Merlin nodded. “I could be. If you wanted to.”

“You're just an evacuee,” Arthur said, sneering at the word, more probably at the implications it came with. Merlin had no connections. No one in the country to take him in unless they were doing it out of charity. No money. No assets. Only a mum back in London who couldn't give him a house that was safe. “You'll be gone once the bombings stop.”

“True,” Merlin said, lifting his chin up. “I have a mum and pals I want to go back to. I don't need you.” He shrugged, hands in his trousers. “Just offering.”

The carpet deadened Merlin's footfall. He had his hand on the doorknob when Arthur said, “Merlin--”

 

**** 

 

**December, 1944**

 

The sky was a livid grey and cumbered by clouds as heavy as leaden blankets. The air felt like snow and fog crept up the platform. 

The clanging station bell sounded. 

Breath steaming in the steely air, Merlin put down his case, a much larger one than the cardboard affair he'd brought along in '40, and said, “So here we are.”

Arthur leant close, too close for it not to be a risk. “Can't you spend Christmas here?” He looked down, his eyes fixed on Merlin's woolly gloves. “It's still risky in London.”

“You know I don't come keep coming here because of the blitz,” Merlin said. “I just want to spend Christmas with my mum. She's alone.”

“You said the florist was sweet on her,” Arthur said, his thumb stealing up Merlin's sleeve, under it, finding skin.

“Arthur,” Merlin hissed, heartbeat stuttering in his chest as it had done all night long when Arthur kept mouthing at his neck and kissing and palming his cock. “You know I can't.”

Arthur swallowed. Bobbed his head and glanced away. His eyes were now on a woman's hat, on the big showy flower pinned to its side. “Come for the New Year. Nobody will suspect you're doing it for any other reason than the usual.”

“If I could take you to London with me, you know I would.”

Arthur made a noise low in his throat. “I know.”

“Catrina would kill us both,” Merlin said with a little snort. “Her little prince taken away from the castle to come and stay in a bad neighbourhood? Not happening.”

“I wished it could--” Arthur started to say, to be stopped by the noise of a train rolling into the station.

Merlin picked up his suitcase again but then put it down when he found that the train that was announced wasn't his. His was late. This one was the Express that came from Dover. 

Arthur clamped a hand around his arm. “Not yours,” he said. “Not yet.”

Merlin's eyes went wet with tears for wanting to kiss Arthur. He hated the prying eyes and the witnesses that made it impossible for him to take just one kiss. He wallowed in the misery of it till Arthur gave him back dollops of joy by embracing him as you would a long lost friend.

“I'm allowed to say goodbye to my oldest mate,” Arthur said breathing him in and enveloping him in a cloud of scent and strength that made Merlin light-headed. “My best mate who's setting off. ” He lowered his voice. “My special mate.”

Merlin would have answered and made a fool of himself by way of mushy words that wouldn't have done either of them any good, but was prevented by a stern voice he knew well saying, “Hello, my boy, I'm home for Christmas.”

Arthur let go of him to at first gape then shake his father's hand like a man possessed. Major Pendragon started by patting his son on the shoulders, saying, 'There, there,” but that was just Arthur's cue for throwing himself in his father's arms. “I thought,” Arthur said thickly, “that you were somewhere in Belgium.”

“I got leave,” said Major Pendragon, acknowledging Merlin over Arthur's shoulder. “I got leave, Arthur.”

Arthur sniffed, his fingers white at the knuckles and digging into the Major's starched uniform. “I'm glad you managed to.”

Merlin smiled at the little Christmas miracle going on before his very eyes and was still smiling when his own train rattled into the station, the other one having left when they weren't noticing.

“So this is it. This is mine,” he said.

“I know,” Arthur said, pouting and as teary-eyed as Merlin had been before. “I know.”

Merlin parted from Arthur with a watery smile and a nod; the Major shook his hand. “Have a safe trip, Merlin. Give your mother my regards.”

Arthur and his father were still on the platform when Merlin's train started whirring in motion. Merlin caught Arthur's eyes and mimed, “I'll write.”

Arthur smiled a more brilliant smile than the situation warranted, doffed his cap and mouthed, “I'll write back.”

Merlin grinned and settled in his seat, his mum's Christmas pudding waiting for him at home.

 

The End.


End file.
